Having Fun Making Pencil Toppers

Pencil toppers are good for two things: they will help your kid like his pencil, and they will help your kid not put his pencil in his mouth. Homemade pencil toppers are great because they not only look great but also they are a fun project that you can enjoy with your kids.

One way to make pencil toppers is to buy a kit. Look in the toy section of just about any department store, and you will find a little kit to make pencil toppers out of clay. These kits cost about five dollars, and your kid will be able to make about four or five toppers. What you get for your money is little pieces of bakeable clay in different colors, and some instructions. There will be patterns included in the instructions if your child needs ideas about what to make.

Follow the directions that are included in the kit. Most likely, you will form the pencil toppers and then cook them in the oven for about a half hour. Once they are cooked and cooled, you will have professional quality pencil toppers that are handmade by your child.

There are plenty of ways to make homemade pencil toppers that don’t require you to buy a kit. Two cute pencil toppers only require a piece of felt, some thread, glue or tape and maybe a pair of beady eyes. To make a firecracker topper, you will need to take a strip of felt about an inch long and three inches wide. Use a scissors to make cuts parallel to each other the long way. This means you are cutting the three-inch direction not the one-inch direction. Make your cuts go about Â¾ the length of the felt.

Once the felt is cut, wrap it around the pencil at the eraser. You want to wrap it so that the uncut part is right below the eraser and the fringes go over the eraser and extend away from the pencil. This should have the effect of a firework exploding. When you get it so that it looks right, you can use the glue or tape to secure the felt to the pencil. After it is on, use the thread to wrap both ends of the uncut felt. This will give a nice professional look to the pencil topper. You child may want to use tiny dabs of craft glue to attach stars, or sequins to the ends of the fringes to increase the fireworks effect. The other way that you can use a piece of felt to make a pencil topper is to make a little creature that dangles down the opposite way. You can cut a circle about 3 or 4 inches in diameter from a piece of felt. Next, you want to cut a small hole that you can stick the pencil eraser through. After you have a circle and a hole, use scissors to cut the circle as you would a pie. The trick is, you only want to cut Â¾ an inch away from the hole in the center. Make 12 to 16 cuts. Next, you should wind a bunch of thread around the pencil just below the eraser. You want this to be thick so that the felt circle will stick out from the pencil once you have it in place. After the pencil is wrapped, place the pencil eraser through the felt. Push the felt down past the eraser and right against the thread. Once you have it adjusted right, place a little bit of glue on the bottom of the felt circle, where it rests against the thread. Use enough glue that both the felt and the thread will stay in place. The last thing to do is put to beady eyes on two neighboring pieces of felt. This should look just like a floppy octopus is living on top of the pencil. What fun!